Recently Launched!

We’re proud to announce some of our recently launched projects!

Studio DNA Salon
www.studiodnasalon.com
November, 2007

 

 

The Million Lights Project
www.millionlightsproject.org
November, 2007

 

The Festival of New American Musicals
www.lafestival.org
November, 2007

 

 

Discrimination Attorney
www.discriminationattorney.com
October, 2007

 

The Safe Sippy
www.thesafesippy.com
September, 2007

Everything but the Kitchen Sink

Illustration: Dave Abston (www.graphicsbydave.com)

Scope Creep (also called requirement creep, feature creep, and sometimes kitchen sink syndrome) in project management refers to uncontrolled changes in a project’s scope. This phenomenon can occur when the scope of a project is not properly defined, documented, or controlled. It is generally considered a negative occurrence to be avoided.

Typically, the scope increase consists of either new products or new features of already approved product designs, without corresponding increases in resources, schedule, or budget. As a result, the project team risks drifting away from its original purpose and scope on unplanned additions. As the scope of a project grows, more tasks must be completed within the budget and schedule originally designed for a smaller set of tasks. Thus Scope Creep can also result in a project team overrunning its original budget and schedule. If budget or schedule are increased along with scope, the change is usually considered an acceptable addition to the project, and the term ‘Scope Creep’ not used.

Scope Creep can also be thought of as a process of trial and error for clients to discover what they really want…

Symptoms
• Projects that have been going on for a long time
• Clients who are picky and tend to change their minds often
• Scattered content and pieces for the website

Scope Creep Example
We took on a OS Commerce shopping cart project about a year ago. In my opinion, the client is one of the sweetest clients I’ve ever dealt with. The initial projections looked profitable; the budget and scope were optimistic. We all thought it was going to be a great addition to our portfolio. However as the project progressed, things started to change, and before you know it, we were over budget! What happened?

She found her own graphic designer, so our initial comps went to the graveyard…
A new photo shoot came around, we waited for a month…
The simple “portfolio” became a Flash portfolio with it’s own Scope Creep issues…
Content edits kept changing due to time sensitive information/press pieces…

Just when we thought we could wrap things up, the client became frustrated with the look and feel of the shopping cart. The graphic designer came back with a complete redesign of the cart including new headers, styles, color palettes and additional images that required detailed cropping and instructions. Mega Scope Creep alert! We became very aware that the project was slowly draining our resources.

When faced with this scenario, we can ask ourselves 2 questions: 1) What could we have done to prevent this from happening? 2) How can we make this a win-win situation? We informed the client of the issue and tried to wrap up the website with one final round of changes. The client understood that we were trying our best to deliver the shopping cart that she had envisioned. As of this writing the project still isn’t complete but we remain optimistic that it will launch soon.

The reality is that in this industry, some amount of scope creep is inevitable. It’s not only a process of trial and error for clients to discover what they really want, it’s also a process of learning how we as designers/developers can mitigate similar situations in the future. As a project manager, I definitely learned a valuable lesson: always be aware of the budget, set client expectations and clearly define the scope ahead of time!

-Temy Gu
Project Manager

CMS vs. Pay As You Go

What is a Content Management System? (CMS) If you’ve ever had a Myspace page, a personal Yahoo!, My MSN or iGoogle page, a membership to a dating site or used eBay, then you’ve used a CMS.

My MSN Myspace

CMS allows a person untrained in web development and coding to upload/edit content on a website. It makes it easy for the average Joe/Jill to manage their online stuff.

We are often asked to build CMS for websites. But here’s the bad news… No matter how “easy” the CMS is designed, it’s still work for the end user. It takes time and focus to log onto an online CMS, prepare your content, text and graphics, and upload it to the system.

Many clients initially think they have the time to do the CMS on their site but usually run into problems like: forgetting username and password, writing crappy text, unable to optimize images correctly, etc. Many times these clients come back to the developer to ask them to manage the content for their site.

So the client pays $X,000 for a CMS and ends up paying a developer $X,000 to make the edits.

We always caution our clients before building a CMS. They need to realistically think about the ongoing site maintenance tasks and determine if the added cost of the CMS and the manpower on their side is worth it instead of paying their developer for edits on an as-needed basis.

Recently Launched!

Book
(www.readtoc.com)
Launched May, 2007

For this website, we did the entire design and development, including the Banner Ad design. Also, We also programmed basic Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to maximize potential search result yield.

Glass Family Law
Law & Legal Services
(www.glassfamilylaw.com)
Launched May, 2007

Again, we completely designed and developed this website from scratch. Also, we included basic SEO to encourage traffic from various search engines.

Library Bar
Bar & Restaurant
(www.librarybarla.com)
Launched June, 2007

This was our design, as well. After development, we included SEO to increase web traffic to the site.

 

Take some time to check out these great professional products, services and establishments.

When you’re done, take note that Executionists can design and develop a website to highlight any product or service — visit executionists.com and browse our portfolio!

Get Aggressive on the Web.

If you’re a traditional retail business, you can often open a shop selling widgets with little local competition. Other than your signage and the occasional mailer to remind people that you’re there, there’s little need for aggressive marketing.

But, open a business on the web, and suddenly you’re competing with local, national and even international competitors. Unless you have a niche, local service business or exclusive product, you have no choice but to get aggressive on the web.

So what can you do?

A quick Google search shows us:

• 22,056 books on web marketing at Amazon
• 185,000,000 related sites on internet marketing companies
• 109,000,000 related sites for website marketing tips

With all these resources, how do you determine what makes the most sense for your business?

Here’s our top 3 ways to get aggressive with your web marketing:

1) Design.

Make sure your site is designed well. Is it visually appealing, or does it look like someone threw up random text and images? Does the text captivate and motivate visitors to learn about your business?

2) SEM (Search Engine Marketing) & SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

This has become a huge industry over the last five years. If I look at web stats for our website, I can see that over 50% of our traffic comes from search engines such as Google. There’s a strategy to getting a high position in the search engines, and knowing how to develop that strategy and implement it is critical to the success of a web business.

3) Affiliate Marketing.

Are you a member of any professional business organizations? Chamber of Commerce, Trade Organizations, etc. Chances are these organizations will have websites and member directories. Maximize your exposure on these affiliated websites because links from them to you (and vice versa) will boost your website traffic.

Let’s not forget about email and print marketing. But I’ve got to get back to work, so I’ll get to that next week.

If there’s a topic you’d like us to blog about, let us know. And if you want to get aggressive on the web with your business, give us a call for a free consultation.

eCommerce Checklist

ECOMMERCE CHECKLIST:
Everything you ever wanted to know about eCommerce and way more.

Step 1 | Domain Name

• Domain Name Registration – www.yourdomain.com, etc.

Step 2 | Products – Ecommerce Solutions / Smart Web Site Design

• Product Keywords, Title and Descriptions:
  • Good product descriptions and titles are vital to be successful at eCommerce. Generally, you will need a Product Name, SKU, Description, Key Words for search, Weight, Height and Length

• Size and Variations:
  • For example, the Size group could contain: “small, “medium”, “large” and another group called Color: “large” or “red”, “blue” and “green”.

• Product Categories:
  • For example, > Toys > Babies > Bath Toys. Better organization enables people to find what they are looking for faster!!

• Product Images:
  • A thumbnail and a large version of each product are a good idea. Sizes are unimportant as long as you remain consistent – catalogs look more uniform that way. Resolution on large images is important, we recommend 72 dpi. Some shopping carts allow up to four images per product for the larger, detailed pages.

• Pricing Information:
  • Be sure to include base price, B2B price, volume pricing, static pricing, prices of various options, costs, etc.

Step 3 | Payment Methods – Ecommerce Solutions

• Merchant Account
  • This will be necessary for any credit card authorizations online or Brick and Mortar stores.
• Payment Gateway Provider:
  • If you want real-time online authorizations, you’re going to need this. Internet Protocol (IP) payment gateway services that enable merchants to authorize, settle and manage credit card or electronic check transactions anytime, anywhere are handy. For example: Paypal, Verisign, Authorize.Net
• Business Bank Account:
  • Simply put, it’s a necessity for any business.

Step 4 | Currency – Ecommerce Solutions
Take a minute to ask yourself:

• What currencies do you need to support?
• Does your merchant account / payment gateway provide support your required currencies?

Step 5 | Taxes – Ecommerce Solutions
We know you wouldn’t want to overlook the tax policy for purchases:

• What state / country will operations be based out of? Does the company have more than 1 “node” (an office, warehouse, or distribution center)? If yes, where?
• What is the sales tax rate (or VAT if you are in Europe) in your state or country?

Step 6 | Shipping – Ecommerce Solutions
It’s a good idea to consider shipment possibilities and which would serve your company and customers the best:

• Package tracking via UPS, FedEx or USPS.
• What carriers will you use? USPS, FedEx, UPS, DHL, etc.
• How will you charge for shipping? By value, by weight, a fixed rate based or a formula?
• Will you allow international shipment? If so, how much will you charge? Will the customer be responsible for paying customs charges (we recommend that they do)?

Step 7 | Technology Requirements – Ecommerce Solutions
When building an eCommerce website, these are some important decisions you will need to make.

• Do you have any technology requirements as far as a programming languages (Cold Fusion, PHP, ASP), operating platforms (Unix vs. Windows), or database platform (MS Access vs. MySQL vs. MS SQL)?
• Do you have/need your own dedicated server, or do you need a hosting provider?
• Do you have adequate space for your product catalog images?

Step 8 | User Experience – Ecommerce Solutions
These are some other questions you’ll need to answer before you launch into your design and development process:

• Will you want your customers to have the ability to register with a username and password so that customers can view previous order history and track orders?
• Will your site require a search engine for finding products, articles, etc?
• Will you have a newsletter for users to subscribe to? Will they be able to manage their own subscriptions? Will it be HTML formatted?
• Will you have sales and specials?
• Will you have auctions?
• Will you offer discounts or promotions?
• Will you have affiliates?

If you contact us, we can give you a free personalized consultation and make some great, inexpensive recommendations based on our years of experience!

www.executionists.com
rparr@executionists.com
(310) 754-3807

7 Tips for An Effective Online Business

These seven important tips are based on many years of online development experience for over 70 clients, ranging from promotional, entertainment, community, commerce, and business websites.

1) Avoid “cookie cutter” solutions.
When contemplating taking the easy way out, be certain to ask yourself:

• Will this generic design sell my specific product and/or services?
• Does this design provide adequate promotional areas?
• Is this design consistent with my brand?
• Who will maintain and make updates to the site?
• Can I trust this company and their support and hosting services?

A site designed by an experienced person who understands your business goals and can proactively help you to maximize your online opportunities is invaluable.

2) Drive your customer to the goal
Your website must be designed around your business goals.

For example if one of your business goals is to build an email list of prospective clients then you must motivate site visitors to sign up from the first page. The email signup should be repeated throughout the site, and designed to entice your target customer.

If one of your goals is to sell a product, then don’t bury it 2 or more pages into the site. Bring it to the home page and design it’s presentation to be attractive to your online customers.

3) Offer free stuff
Something of perceived value can be used to drive visitors to your site, and motivate them to purchase products and services. Some things that you could offer on your website:
• Download a newspaper or article on your field of expertise
• Download coupons or certificates for products/services
• Free consultations, assessments and workshops
• Promotional merchandise (samples, T-shirts, caps, etc.)
• Entry into a contest or drawing

4) Seek out relationships with complimentary Websites
Broaden your marketing punch by forming co-marketing efforts with appropriate websites. A good way to start is to make a list of businesses that attract your target customer. Find ones that you think would benefit from a partnership with you and vice-versa. Contact them and see if they are interested in:

• A cobranded email campaign
• A banner exchange with your Website
• A cobranded, printed mail campaign
• A cobranded promotion
• A referral program

If you can create just 3 relationships with complimentary businesses you could triple the number of potential customers.

5) Emphasize your differences
Think about what makes your business different from the others, for example:
• Local service
• Experience/Knowledge
• Low prices
• A specific focus

Capitalize on these differences and make sure your Website reflects it. One of my clients developed a unique tool for his profession. He buried it within the site, making difficult for clients to find it. I encouraged him to bring it to the forefront because that is his unique value that he brings to potential customers.

6) Learn from the competition
Know saying “keep your enemies closer than your friends”? Don’t recreate the wheel! Take a day to review what your competition is up to. Create a list of what they are doing well and what they are doing poorly. Use this knowledge to improve your site!

7) Build a targeted email list
Most of the people who visit your Website are potential customers. Motivate online visitors and offline prospects to give you their email address. This list is gold if handled correctly.

Use the list on a regular basis to send promotional newsletters or other ‘valuable’ messages to. This will keep your businesses name in your customers minds, so when they’re ready to make a decision, your business will benefit.

These 7 tips are some of the most vital factors in online business success.

Remember that with so many businesses online, and so many customers/clients going to the internet to make a decision, it’s the online business that is strategically designed that has the advantage.

If you would like further details on any of these tips or a free evaluation of your current media, email us at rparr@executionist.com, or call 310-435-7452.